1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a production system for wafers.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a system for manufacturing wafer by performing slicing processing on an ingot used as a semiconductor material, for example, one disclosed in the patent article 1 (the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-50639) may be mentioned. The wafer manufacturing system disclosed in the patent article 1 has a number of processes, such as storage of ingots, orientation, plate attachment, slice processing, single-wafer processing cleaning and wafer inspection, and moreover, processing in each process and conveyance therein have been automated.
According to the wafer manufacturing system as above, automation has been attained from manufacturing of wafers to the inspection process including conveyance therein.
But when transporting the wafers as products, they are moved from a conveying container in the factory to a transporting container for transporting to clients and the reloading of wafers has been manually handled.
Since the reloading of wafers is operated manually, the operating efficiency has been poor and automation thereof has been desired.
Note that the wafers are reloaded because the conveying container has a handle for conveying protruding outside and requires space for that, so that it is not economical in terms of space when using it for transporting.